Much activity is presently being directed into the design and deployment of "point-to-multipoint" broadband access networks, wherein downstream signals are broadcast from a single head-end facility to multiple end user stations (i.e., via "point-to-multipoint" transmission), and upstream signals are transmitted from each respective end users to the head end facility (i.e., via "point-to-point" transmission), respectively. It presently anticipated that point-to-multipoint broadband access networks will be employed to support a variety of independent communication services, such as, e.g., traditional two-way telecommunications, broadcast video (i.e., CATV) services and a full range of digital baseband services.
Given the wide variety of potential communication services to be supported over point-to-multipoint network broadband access networks, it is desirable to provide efficient digital data transmission protocols for supporting both the downstream and upstream communication paths. Notably, such networks are well suited to support asynchronous transfer mode ("ATM") based data transmission, whereby data packets or "cells" are periodically assembled and transmitted from a sending node, and received and disassembled at a receiving node. In particular, ATM transmission enables the transmission of multiple services over a single communication path, whereby individual service bandwidth utilization may be optimized as a function of the statistical activity of each individual service.
The use of relatively low noise, high speed point-to-multipoint optical networks to support the two-way transmission of a wide variety broadband data services is especially desirable in that optical networks are capable of transporting relative large amounts of data in short time periods. However, in order to fully utilize the high speed, low noise environment provided by an optical network, the selected data transmission protocol(s) should be compatible with existing optical transmission standards, should most fully utilize the available carrier channel bandwidth, and should conform with applicable ATM transmission protocols.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide a network architecture and data communication protocol that will dynamically and adaptively allocate network bandwidth to a number of communication nodes sharing a common point-to-multipoint communication network, such as a relatively high speed, low noise, passive optical network, while simultaneously supporting multiple types of ATM data traffic.